Ink & Chords

It’s like honey.

One of the sweetest delights of being human is waking with laughter on your lips. For me, it’s a rare occurrence. My dreams are often motivated with an ominous threat—of being found, being discovered, being betrayed. Fuel for my stories, night candy, I like to think. But yesterday morning, I dreamt my lover and I were talking sweetly beneath the sheets. The specifics faded as I came to reality, but I know I was being silly. We giggled in dreamland together, then a blink…another blink…and I awoke to a bright room, laughter still rolling off my tongue.

Ugh. It’s moments like these that fire my heart and electrify the tiny hairs on my arms. Being alive is so complicated and overwhelming and busy and demanding—until it’s not. Until a quiet, soft moment steals your attention and awakes you to the ease of simply “being”. Of just existing, of being alive. I love it. I often forget it.

What does he see?

Today I’m in a coffee shop watching a man create a small painting. I’ve seen him here before. He brings containers and briefcases of materials, pencils, brushes, possibly oil pastels, it’s hard to tell from my corner. But here, amid a sea of iPads and millennial distractions, he works in the coffee shop. He paces around his tiny, crowded table with that unmistakable creative’s eye. Looking. Smudging. Lost in his own world. He’s alive. You don’t have to look twice to feel it.

Sweet escape.

I’m in my own world too at the coffee shop. I don’t mind when people catch me bopping my head, tapping my fingers, moving to the song I play on endless repeat in my headphones. Carving into my journal with a ferocity, as if the inspiration will disappear if I don’t translate these feelings into words immediately. It’s a reliable medicine, my own little doorway to euphoria. I’m alive.

Here’s a poem I scribbled during today’s coffee shop visit:

a melody splits my mind
          want to do
              vs.
          need to feel
This new voice, familiar strings…
I’m drifting, floating, on the
delicate threads of distant memories.
          and I just want to be held like this
caressed, always and forever
by ink and chords and realized fantasies

Wishing you soft, quiet, profound moments.

– Sam

Thank you for being here today.